Thoughts On Team Seven
by ManaCrucifixion
Summary: Kakashi has memories and determination, Naruto has greed and guilt, Sasuke has delusions and yesterdays, and Sakura has hope. Set in Shippuden. Gen fic.


**Thoughts on Team Seven**

* * *

_**Kakashi**_

* * *

Reminiscing on the past is useless. That, enough, I will admit. Despite what others may believe, I know that the dead do not care. They do not care, they do not cry and they do not bleed. They are just curled up, six feet under or beneath a million tonnes of stone, it does not matter, they are dead and gone. Bodies rotting in the earth, feeding insects and parasites, letting off that disgusting stench that accompanies Death on its pale horse.

And so, no. Team Seven, I know, is not my team. It's Team Kakashi, not Team Minato. And I know that I don't have an Obito, a Kakashi, a Rin, and a Minato-sensei. I just have a Naruto, a Sasuke, a Sakura, and a Me. We are Team Seven. We are our own, not a cheap imitation of past mistakes and regrets.

But, in spite of what I know, it's not easy letting go. When I look at us, I can't help seeing that flash of golden hair and sky-blue eyes, a shimmer of late-borne sharingan, or the green glow of healing hands; a loud fool, a cold one who needs to prove he is his own, a naive little girl who has never faced the horrors of the world, and a young sensei who has no idea what he's doing.

However, buried somewhere in this complex tangled knot we have created, is an identity. Somewhere, deep down, I know we have something. I hope that we will prove it. Not only to ourselves, but to everyone else, as well. We will prove that we are more than a cold prodigy who just doesn't measure up, an idiotic dead-last that contains the greatest demon, a girl on the way to failure who has never before encountered hardship, and a broken man lost in the past.

We are Team Seven. And we will prove them wrong.

* * *

_**Naruto**_

* * *

I wished, you see. I wished for a family. Something more than two piteous stand owners, an old man that only saw what could have been, and a teacher that stood behind me, grasped my shoulders, looked ahead, and saw only himself in the mirror. So I just grinned that smile, and squinted my eyes, and comforted myself with thoughts of: "At least there is someone!", and reminded myself of lonely days on a swaying swing, surrounded by dozens of children, but all alone.

And then I got it. I got the family I yearned for. In the form of a scowling boy with thoughts only on death, a shallow girl with thoughts only on life and love, and a man who was still a boy who had no one left to help him heal. Together we were twisted and distorted, and we all had our masks. But, to each other, they were invisible. We may have, when together, kept up the act of loyal, whole prodigy, of strong young woman, of care-free child-man and of cheerful moron, but we knew we could not lie to each other. And soon, we found ourselves becoming our masks, becoming what we wished we really were. And, for a while, everything was good. They were mine. And I was theirs.

I got a shy girl who thought she loved me, a wild-boy just like I wished to be, a quiet brooder who liked to watch and wait. I got a sweet boy who lived to eat and liked his friends, a girl who was too sharp with words she did not mean, and a genius-boy who wished he was a man who was just a little bit callous. I got a godfather-teacher who lingered at the sidelines, a branded boy who looked up to me, and a wide-eyed boy who knew my pain. All was well. And then the picture cracked.

The scowling boy was branded by the snake that godfather-teacher couldn't bring himself to kill, and he grew angry and frightened. He thought he had lost sight of his goal, and so, like all scared children do, he ran. He ran from happiness, from love, from family, because his thoughts were haunted with fears of what could be. He ran and I couldn't catch up to him. And I thought, maybe...maybe I had gotten just a little too greedy. Team Seven was family. And I knew, I knew it was me who broke them.

* * *

**_Sasuke_**

* * *

They are nothing, I tell myself. Just pristine paragons of what could have been, and what isn't. I should not bother myself with their pathetic pleading and disgusting weeping. I broke our ties on the day I thanked Sakura, the day I ran away from Kakashi, and the day I killed Naruto. There is nothing left for me there. Our bond frayed and simply snapped with the strain it could not take.

That's what I tell myself. In my heart, though, I know it is not true. The tenuous fibres of feeling that connect us may be fragile, but still they are tugged in the winds, they fizz with lightning, they strain against the grasping earth, and no matter what I do, or what I may say, they will not burn. Hah! Itachi always did say I was good at self-delusion.

So, at night, when I'm no longer Sasuke, the defeater of Orochimaru, or Sasuke, the missing ninja, or Sasuke, the brother of Itachi, when I am just a scared child calling out for its dead mother, I wish. I wish we were back in those days of scowling and softly smiling when no one was looking, of shouting and screaming out to the heavens that " I will be strong!". Those days of giggling and teasing and hiding veiled melancholy in a single eye, of fawning and pointless victories.

And on those deepest, darkest nights, I feel the pressure of that frayed, red string cutting into my ankle, drawing blood and festering there. Yet, despite, or maybe in fact of, the pain, I cannot bring myself to just tear it off.

And then morning comes, red eyes open, and only Itachi is upon the horizon.

* * *

**_Sakura_**

* * *

Once, once I was a little girl. A little girl who liked a little boy and hated another. A little girl who thought of nothing but herself. A little girl who tried so desperately to be what she was not. And then I met them...and I began to change.

The change was not immediate, by any definition, it was slow, and it was gradual, but it was there. I began to see more than 'I', and bit by bit, I let myself out. Like a butterfly tentatively struggling out from its familiar, single-room cocoon that it had grown resentful of. I changed, and I evolved, and I bloomed like my namesake in the springtime. But then the playful war arrived.

It was playful, alright, but it was war. And, like all wars, it brought destruction. Innovation was there, and so was improvement and realisation - the only good qualities of war - but the destruction wrought more havoc than we had anticipated. And I broke, and we broke, and suddenly nothing was good. But, soon, I realised, and I had an idea, as all do when wars come to town.

Team Seven is broken, yes. We've scattered, and all that's left is bitter memories and fractured bonds. But we have not gone. We have not let go of those fragile strings that tether us together, or let those bitter feelings dissolve. Even if all that's left is shattered shards, or if we've somehow managed to messily patch ourselves up with layers of false platitudes, we are still here.

I will use these hands to heal those bonds, twine them and strengthen them into unbreakable steel. I will not lose hope. If it takes ten years, a hundred years, I do not care. We are still here. And that means that everything...everything is going to be okay.


End file.
